Urban Waite

Writing Coach

Urban Waite is the author of four novels, available in over forty countries and twelve languages. He has received multiple book deals from Simon & Schuster UK, Little Brown, and William Morrow, among many other book and film deals throughout Europe, Asia, and the production companies of Hollywood.

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Urban Waite is the author of four novels, available in over forty countries and twelve languages. During that time, he has received multiple book deals from Simon & Schuster UK, Little Brown, and William Morrow, among many other book and film deals throughout Europe, Asia, and the production companies of Hollywood.

Urban Waite’s debut novel, The Terror of Living, catapulted him to international acclaim, earning praise from literary giants Stephen King, Daniel Woodrell, and Michael Koryta. It was also lauded as a Best Book of the Year by Esquire Magazine, The Boston Globe, and Booklist. Since then, Urban has published three more novels, while also adapting projects for renowned entities such as Disney, Ubisoft, and Fox Entertainment, for franchises like X-Files and Far Cry.

When not writing the next novel, Urban is the Narrative Director and Narrative Consultant for several VC-funded entertainment and gaming startups in New York and Silicon Valley, working on a diverse range of projects from historical, speculative fiction and science fiction to crime fiction and rural noir.

For fun (and a few nice dinners here and there), Urban is a regular contributor to the Books Section of the San Francisco Chronicle, where he has reviewed known names such as Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell, as well as up-and-comers such as Steph Cha, Attica Locke, and Nadifa Mohamed.

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Great novels come in all genres and from all different perspectives and parts of the world. And it is a pleasure to talk about books and the characters within, while striving to craft and elevate the conflicts, motivations, and complexities of those stories, so that they become great novels.

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Urban Waite

“A hell of a good novel, relentlessly paced and beautifully narrated. There’s just no let-up. Waite’s style is tight and taut.” —Stephen King

Novels by

Urban Waite

The Terror of Living

Phil Hunt is in deep trouble.

Hunt is on the run from two men: Drake, the deputy sheriff who intends to catch him, and Grady, the vicious hitman who means to kill him.

For twenty years Hunt has lived in Washington State, raising horses with his wife on his small farm. He's tried to stay out of trouble, wanting only to make a living and taking the occasional illicit job in order to do so.

Then his last delivery goes horribly wrong, and the chase is on from the mountains down into the Puget lowlands. To have any chance of rescuing his quiet life, Hunt will have to deal with deputy sheriff Bobby Drake, a good man determined to make up for his father's tainted legacy and Grady Fisher, a very bad man intent on making a name for himself in the most violent ways. With a fondness for blood, Grady takes pleasure in the use of knives, taking Hunt's life apart piece by piece, all the while leaving a trail of victims across the state.

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The Carrion Birds

Hired gun Ray Lamar is ready to put his past behind him. He wants to see his twelve-year-old son and start a new life—away from the violence of the last ten years. One last heist will take him there. All he has to do is steal a rival’s stash. Simple, easy, clean.

But when things start to go very wrong, Ray realizes the path to redemption isn’t always easy.

A soulful tale of violence, vengeance, and contrition, The Carrion Birds is an elegant depiction of one man’s last chance to make things right.

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Sometimes the Wolf

Sheriff Patrick Drake tried to lead an upstanding life and maintain some financial stability until his wife passed away. He did okay for a while, singlehandedly raising his family in a small mountain town. Then he was hit with money troubles, fell in with some unsavory men, and ended up convicted of one of the biggest crimes in local history.

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Far Cry Absolution

Hope County, Montana. Land of the free and the brave, but also home to a fanatical doomsday cult known as The Church of Eden's Gate that has slowly been infiltrating the residents' daily lives in the past years. Mary May Fairgrave, a local barkeep, has lost almost everything to the Church: her parents died in suspicious conditions and her brother, entranced by the cult leader's charismatic words, has vanished. When the authorities refuse to investigate further, she decides to take matters into her own hands. Local hunter William Boyd was saved by Eden's Gate years ago, during the darkest moments of his life. When his duties lead him to cross paths with Mary May, the daughter of one of his old friends, he soon discovers that what is happening in the county is far from what he believed. Up against an omniscient and dangerous adversary, Mary May stands little chance. But the unexpected intervention of William Boyd will change her journey-as well as his.

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